‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Delivers Too Late Six Episodes Into Its Fifth Season

It might be too little too late, but The Handmaid’s Tale has probably delivered it’s best hour of the season six (of ten) episodes in. Actually, it’s not even a great episode necessarily. It just has the best plot points that kick the show out of its mundane slump and finally put it on a trajectory towards an interesting plot line. Unfortunately, this season is already beyond the halfway mark. If, perhaps, these things happened earlier in the season, they could have put the characters in a space that was more engaging and entertaining so that they can actually do stuff. Instead, viewers will just have to wait and see if these developments actually lead the season towards a fulfilling climax.

Continuing fromthe developments from last week’s episode, June (Elisabeth Moss) and Luke (O-T Fagbenle) deal with being in captivity, although it’s not quite apparent who has them. Meanwhile, Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) slowly comes to terms with the fact that she is indeed a prisoner and doesn’t have the freedom she expected. Also, the commander she is staying with tells her he has access to June and will have her killed. Serena pleads with him to let her go, and he does. In the episode’s closing moments, though, Serena has a change of heart and shoots her bodyguard, escaping with June.

Besides this shocking turn of events, a commander is also killed after he rapes a handmaid before she was posted. There were a lot of politics involved in that decision, but it is very telling that nobody in Gilead is safe. Besides these two wild turn of events, the episode was largely slow going. It’s obvious that things will get complicated, but it took the season a long time to get to this point. The developments are interesting and can have huge ramifications. Hopefully, the rest of the season can rally behind what took place and finish off a lot stronger than it started.

The Handmaid’s Tale streams Wednesdays on Hulu.